


vertigo

by moringlories



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Human Mark, M/M, Vampire Taeyong, taeyong took mark in when he was nine but now mark's twenty and has caught Feelings, they're both panicked gays but taeyong hides it better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 18:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15321213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moringlories/pseuds/moringlories
Summary: Taeyong has always prided himself on keeping a tight reign on his impulses; it just so happens that Mark manages to deplete every ounce of self control he has.





	vertigo

 

Today, VMPR 1 is a catalogued condition in the Centers for Disease Control database.

 

Everyone knows the facts. Venom in the fangs causes it, and consumption of the progenitor’s own blood spurs it on. Elementary. It wasn’t until 1966, less than one year after VMPR 1’s first study in clinical labs, that American hematologist Maria Gillen coined the term ‘vampire,’ transforming it into a household word with the same connotation attached to it as ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ or ‘human.’

 

But it goes without saying that attitudes towards vampires haven’t always been so peachy.

 

The virus emerged three hundred years ago. Records have led historians to believe it began in the northwest region of Romania, where it made its rapid expansion into western Europe, then every population across the world.

 

VMPR 1’s victims faced no small number of atrocities at the start. Forced isolation, ritual torture, pire burnings, wooden bullets, public stakings, all in a small region of the Western Hemisphere alone. Holy men justified it as means to erase the mark of the devil come to earth. An affront to God’s will, they were called, meant to foster in a new age of sin and vice.

 

But like everything, a smaller number had seen it for what it was: a boon. Inhuman strength, unforeseen long life, regenerative healing and virtual immunity - if you’re prepared to pay the toll at the bridge.

 

VMPR 1 has no treatment. Either the host beats the turning, an excruciating process that propels them to the brink of death and then back again, or they die trying.

 

It’s simple, in a dark, fatalistic sort of way.

 

And Taeyong had long come to terms with that.

 

He just never thought Mark would be in danger of the turning. Or that he’d be the one to put him in it.

  
  
  


 

 

“I just got on the parkway. I should be there in like, an hour?”

 

Taeyong cradles the phone against his shoulder as he eyes the stack of files on the corner of his desk. “Sounds good, just be careful on the way here, it looks like the snow’s picking up. I’ll try to be home by then. Love you, Mark.”

 

“Yeah, love you, too,” Mark says over the line. There’s a distinctly embarrassed undertone to it, one that he’s been on the receiving end of a lot recently, he notes, but he waits until the line disconnects before pocketing his phone.

 

From the sofa Jaehyun watches Taeyong with lazy eyes, like he couldn’t be bothered hiding the fact that he hasn’t moved an inch in hours. Taeyong masks a snort. There’s probably some work ethic code he could pull on him for elective neglect of his job and slumming it out in the CEO’s office. “Little boss’s coming home?”

 

“For winter break, yes.” Staring at the pile won’t make the paperwork go away. He can try, though.

 

When as a general rule, people of their kind are attracted to things that go boom, Taeyong finds he leads a significantly less exciting occupation. Having founded the country’s leading biomedical research facility little more than forty years ago, he’s been swamped in the process of orchestrating a new era of comprehension on the V1P1 protein. It’ll still be a handful of decades yet before science can even plausibly _entertain_ the idea of reverse engineering VMPR 1, but it’s not like he’s getting any older, either.

 

And in the meantime, no playboy parties, no mass orgies, and certainly nothing else the public expects from Korea’s most eligible vampire.

 

It’s a different world from the one he had grown up in. By the tail end of the seventies, not only were those like him able to seamlessly integrate themselves into society, but they soon began to dominate the covers of magazines and billboards across the country and dip their fingers in every pie there was.

 

He’s thankful. Honesty works for him in the end; it would have been only a matter of years before the public started questioning why NCT’s CEO never aged a day over twenty-five.

 

Or why he hasn’t keeled over from overworking, if Mark’s commentary is anything to go by. It’s only when the better half of five minutes pass with him staring forlornly at the top page in the stack and the form staring right back that Jaehyun sighs and waves a hand at him. “Go, I’ll take care of it.”

 

He doesn’t get a chance to protest, especially when Jaehyun snorts. “Listen, I’m doing this out of pure self-preservation. I don’t plan on torturing myself listening to your stream of Mark consciousness the whole night.”

 

“My stream of what?”

 

“You know. ‘Isn’t Mark the cutest?’ ‘Look at this picture of Mark with his friends that I haven’t shown you four different times. He’s glowing.’ ‘I wonder what Mark is up to. He only calls once a week now and I cry myself to sleep sometimes thinking about it.’ The usual.”  

 

Taeyong contains the urge to roll his eyes. Zen. Best not to strangle his CFO. “You know me so well, honey bunches.”

 

Jaehyun smirks. “Best friend of seventy years, remember? Attached at the hip since 1949, baby.”

 

“You’ll have to forgive me. Call it a seven decade lapse of judgement on my part.”

 

He thrums his fingers on the desk, weighing his options. He can always come back to the office after Christmas to finish up whatever Jaehyun doesn’t. Because he knows Jaehyun, and he knows there’s bound to be a paper he missed, or a transcript that needs to be read. But the thought of being home, watching the snowfall and breathing in the quiet ambiance Mark manages to bring with him is infinitely more attractive than staying another late night with another stack of forms to be filled.

  
  
  


 

 

"Taeyong?"

 

He beats Mark home by twenty minutes, and he’s seconds from putting the kettle on when the door unlocks and the tell tale scuffle of a suitcase rolls in.

 

Besides the windswept hair and pretty flush to his cheeks from the cold, Mark looks just as well as he did when he came down for Chuseok three months before, same perpetually soft eyes and same earnest smile. And at twenty, he finally stands eye to eye with him. Taeyong tries hard not to think of a future where the kid he’d taken in eleven years ago would grow to be taller than him.

 

“Merry Christmas, love. You made it okay?” Taeyong steps closer and ruffles his hair, dislodging the melting snowflakes caught in it. When he pulls him into a hug, he can still smell the faint scent of the strawberry shampoo Mark loves. “You’re freezing.” It’s unnecessary commentary, considering how Mark is still shivering in his college sweatshirt.

 

“Oh, uh...the heat in Borris was kind of acting up,” Mark says into his shoulder reluctantly.

 

Borris is the name Mark picked out for the old silver Hyundai he had leased with his own money last winter. When they'd gone shopping Taeyong had taken one look at it and seen a potential wreck on wheels, but he should have known that Mark would find some way to dig deeper and find more than one good thing about it other than the cost. And then he had hit Taeyong with _the look,_ the one he’d learned at twelve has the power to make Taeyong’s parental resolution fold like a deck of cards, and the rest is self explanatory. To this day, he’s not sure if he’ll ever understand Mark’s human need to anthropomorphize the various cars and roombas in his life.

 

“I wish you’d let me buy you a better car,” Taeyong tuts, releasing Mark to look him in the eye. “You know that I’d be more than happy to do that. A Porsche Cayman, maybe? How does silver sound?”

 

“Nah, sports cars are your thing,” Mark huffs, narrowly dodging a pinch to the cheek. “I’m perfectly happy with my cheap death trap, thanks.” He steps back, surveying the living room. Dozens of gold streamers hang from the banisters, glinting against the low light and dripping down to brush the fully decked out tree in the corner. “Huh. You and Johnny really did a good job decorating. I didn’t think you guys had it in you.”

 

It’s a flimsy diversion, even for Mark’s standards. Since he left for college, he swears Mark has gotten his kicks from suffering from an undergrad’s financial situation. You’d think he’d been pulling teeth with how much Mark tried to persuade him from paying for anything more than an off-campus apartment or some help with tuition. From what Mark tells him, the rest of the money comes from working shifts at a café five nights a week, as if him juggling a poorly paid internship and being captain of the rowing team isn’t work enough. What Mark hopes to prove to him by doing this, other than convince him that he had a hand in bringing up the most stubborn human in the country, he has no clue of.

 

He lets it slide.

 

“Thanks. We spent all of twenty minutes on it, too.” He nudges Mark toward the stairs. “Go unpack. When you’re done, we can drive back to the city for dinner. Artie’s sound good?”

 

The grin Mark replies with is enough to melt ice.

  
  
  


 

 

Artie’s was an old diner even before the city teched up. It’s a clean open space, complete with checkered floors and white laminate tables and kitschy neon signs, and it looks like it popped out of those American classics from the fifties. Mark had loved it instantly.

 

They take their usual table by the far window, wrapped in the muted chatter of other diners and seated under a light Taeyong would hardly call flattering, while their waitress, a robust older woman with salt and pepper at her temples takes their orders.

 

“Came at just the right time,” she comments, pleased. “Couple’s discount for ten percent off your meal, today and tomorrow only.”

 

Maybe the Christmas crunch is finally taking a toll on him. “I’m sorry?” he says at the same time Mark says, “Uh, what?”

 

Maybe not then.

 

The look on Mark’s face is a peculiar combination of awe and mortification. Taeyong does his best to implement his two-and-a-half-centuries worth of practice at keeping a neutral expression in his stead, but it’s hard when Mark’s doing his best impression of a deer in the headlights, big doe eyes even wider than ever.

 

Their waitress makes a sympathetic cluck at Mark. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. It’s a whole new world. There’s nothing wrong with loving who you love.”

 

All it takes is the ‘l’ word for Mark to snap into full panic mode. He waves his hands in the universal NO, sputtering a string of English Taeyong just barely understands. If Mark blushes harder, he just might burn a hole through the atmosphere. “Us? No. We’re -- _us?_ We’re not-”

 

As Taeyong watches him, there’s no doubt in his mind he’s going to get hell for what he’s about to do. Best case scenario, the police will find his body dead and staked in Miami before rigor mortis sets in. Or maybe in his hometown, deep in the countryside.

 

In his defense, there’s limits to sainthood, and in a morbidly hilarious situation such as this, Mark is by far the easiest person to tease he’s ever encountered.

 

“You’re absolutely right.”

 

“I-” Mark pauses. _“Huh?”_

 

Taeyong squeezes Mark’s knee under the table before turning to their waitress. He smiles, and it’s the soft kind, the one that warms up his eyes and practically sparkles with sincerity. If the way she giggles is any indicator, he still has his charms.

 

“You’re right,” he repeats. “Thank you for the support, really. It’s not often that we’re able to enjoy a night together like this.” He tilts his head and lets his eyes go hazy. “He’s so shy about us, after all…”

 

The choked sound Mark makes goes completely ignored as their waitress erupts into coos about young love. She goes in for a pat on the cheek, but considering how Mark has resorted to his de facto measure of covering his face with his hands, there’s not much to pat.

 

Taeyong feels for him, he truly does.

 

She lingers some more, makes small talk with Taeyong as she collects their menus, and throws a “God bless you” at them as she departs. Mark barely waits until she bustles away before dragging his eyes up to his. He looks seconds away from sinking into the booth and never returning.

 

“You are,” he wheezes, only just managing to stare Taeyong down, “the worst. The absolute worst. I don’t know why I’m spending my Christmas with you when I could be in Jeju with Donghyuck’s family right now.”

 

Taeyong looks to the metaphorical stage left and sighs. “To think that Mark Minhyung Lee, the object of my eternal love, would abandon me on Christmas day for his best friend…What a sad world I must live in.”

 

Mark looks like he doesn’t know who to strangle first: him or Taeyong.

 

He groans and lays his head back on the table. Taeyong swallows the urge to make him sit up, because, most likely, the table probably hasn’t been cleaned in years - but then again, who is he to suppress Mark’s melodramatics. “We just lied to an old lady. On Christmas Eve. Does that not bother you at all?”

 

“Hm? Why?” The he look he gives Mark is positively cherubic. “You should never waste a good discount, Mark.”

  
  
  


 

 

On the drive home, Mark has tried with some success to convince himself that dinner could’ve gone worse. How much worse, he’s not at liberty to say. After the first minute of wallowing in self-pity and reenacting Taeyong when the fridge runs out of A-negative blood, his soul joins him back on the mortal plane just in time to catch something about Christmas morning pancakes, and he thinks he can forgive Taeyong this one time. For the pancakes.

 

If Taeyong notices the way Mark pointedly looks at the table, or his pressed collar, or at the soft way the elder’s hair falls, or the unfairly attractive upturn of his lips, or anything that doesn’t involve direct and extended eye contact, he doesn’t mention it. Which is fine. Mark can only handle so much in an hour.

 

By the time dessert rolls out, he feels an extraordinary amount of confidence in being able to hold Taeyong’s gaze for more than a minute without committing to something embarrassing (or more embarrassing than usual, anyway). It’s a small feat, considering he still has their habitual talk for when they get back home.

 

Like a well oiled machine, Taeyong busies himself brewing him a cup of tea and pouring himself a glass of wine as soon as they walk in, while Mark takes one side of the couch and waits until they’re both settled into the living room, dim save for the soft orange light of the fireplace.

 

They’ve always, always made time to catch up with each other, despite how busy Taeyong gets sometimes. They talk about the big money questions, sure, like Mark’s classes or new results at the lab, but they also save room for the little things - like Chenle, the freshman Mark unofficially adopted, or the prank war in the honors dorm he was somehow caught in, or Taeyong’s foray into baking with some success. Just the none too significant things that don’t seem too important over the phone, but have a way of making the world go round eye to eye.

 

And it feels natural, like it had been three years ago, before Mark’s stupid monkey brain decided to catch...feelings.

 

When they talk, time has a way of dropping by like honey. He doesn’t realize how much of the night is gone until he has to fight back a yawn and blink against the weight on his eyelids. Another minute later and he’s curled against the arm of the sofa, and the soft crackling of the fire seems a world away.

 

He barely registers the fine boned fingers that card gently through his hair. “Mark, love. You shouldn’t sleep here, it’s bad for your back.”

 

“‘Know,” he mumbles. He means to get up, he does, but his limbs are heavy and the hand touching his hair feels nice.

 

The hand disappears after a moment, but he isn’t given time to mourn the loss before the world behind his eyelids shifts and he’s being lifted up against Taeyong’s chest. The sleep addling his thoughts takes him a moment to process it all. Taeyong rarely flaunts his strength; he probably hasn’t carried Mark since he was a kid. It’s the stupid monkey brain that seeks the warmth, wrapping his arms around the elder’s shoulders and nosing the column of his throat as Taeyong carries him upstairs.

 

He’s barely awake enough to open his eyes when Taeyong pulls the covers over him and presses his lips lightly to Mark’s knuckles as a goodnight.

 

And _if_ he feels his chest constrict at the touch, he thinks he wouldn’t necessarily hate an unrequited crush if this is the way Taeyong treats him.

  
  
  


 

 

Christmas is a quiet affair, accented by a nice dinner spent with the usual suspects. Ten minutes in, Johnny’s gesticulating wildly and relaying an unwanted drunken English rendition of one his sexcapades, while Jaehyun takes stolen sips from his cup like Mark’s never seen Taeyong drink blood from wine glass before, and _Taeyong_ , Taeyong just watches them with a fondness in his eyes that Mark’s sure he won’t be able to find anywhere in Seoul.

 

And if as horrifically cliché as it sounds, Mark might not have his blood family with him, but this feels okay too.

 

He takes another bite of chicken. So far, he’s done his best to tune out the extraordinarily graphic depictions of Ten in the bedroom, with moderate success. It’s when he swallows that a sharp pain stabs at his gums. He flinches. Okay, _ow_. His hand flies to his cheek, but as soon as the feeling comes, it’s gone.

 

Taeyong frowns, chopsticks frozen halfway to his lips. “Mark?”

 

“Nothing. Just a toothache, probably.” The sheepish smile he gives him must look convincing enough, because Taeyong only makes an _‘ah’_ sound before muttering something about seeing a dentist. Looking back, maybe he should have listened to the little voice reserved for unintended consequences that tells him it isn’t _just_ a toothache, but the day he fucks with the dentist more than he’s required to twice a year is a day he isn’t ready to see yet.

 

Jaehyun sniffs. Mark thinks the face he pulls is meant mimic a disappointed uncle, but it’s that thing that Jaehyun does where his lips press flat and dimples flare out and he just looks cute. “You told me you’d give up fudge pops after the second cavity.”

 

“Nah, dude. Fudge pops are forever.”

  
  
  


 

 

Two weeks later find him back on campus, one down jacket richer courtesy of Taeyong and probably at least three feet deeper in the Pit of Feelings than when he’d left. If he focuses hard enough, the place where Taeyong pecked his cheek goodbye on their last day still tingles. And if he focuses harder than that, he can hear the cogs in his brain working overtime to keep him from overheating.

 

On his way to his last class, he gets a text from from Chenle, in his horrendous soccer mom shorthand, to meet at Jeno and Renjun’s shared apartment afterwards. The text he gets back when he shoots an ‘Ok’ somehow manages the job of greatly exacerbating the headache he’s been nursing since he woke up.

  


**To: Mork**

From: Your Favorite Underclassman

thank u fow gwacing us with ur pwesence, mister mwark :3

  


**To: Chenle**

From: Mark

I raised you on my back and this is the thanks I get

  


The second he steps through the door, Jaemin flags him down from his seat at the kitchen island. He slaps him on the back, an unusually wide grin on his face. “Just heard the news. Congrats, you wacky kids.”

 

Mark blinks. “Uh, thanks? Never say wacky kids to my face again, but thanks? And what news?”

 

A blond head of hair peeks over the living room sofa, and Chenle waves at him, game controller in the other hand. “That you got a ninety-two on Cho’s assignment. Very proud, bud. Also, maybe you finally getting together with a visual god?”

 

“I detest that,” Jisung mumbles.

 

Chenle reaches over and pats him on the cheek. “My bad. You’re hotter, peaches.”

 

The peroxide in his hair must be getting to him. Or the headache. On Chenle’s very selective spectrum of handsomeness, Mark knows from multiple unwanted and in-depth explanations that he falls someplace on the “ehh” side, and somewhere on the other end Chenle has probably dedicated a prayer to the slope of Taeyong’s nose. “Am I missing something?”

 

Jeno clicks his pen, but Mark can barely see him from where he’s hunched at the dining table over an ungodly spread of notes. He can tell that sitting next to him, Renjun’s been doing his best to organize it, but Mark sees scrap paper filled with work on integrals of multivariable functions and a paper directly under it having to do with the politics of the Joseon dynasty, so he’s not sure how exactly that’s working. “Called it. I told you guys he didn’t have the guts to do it.”

 

Renjun slaps the back of his head. “ _Yet._ He hasn’t had the guts to do it, _yet_.” Which, although Mark has no idea what they’re talking about, seems pretty nice coming from Renjun.

 

“Here.” Jaemin hands him his phone, opened up to twitter. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the screen, especially against the low thrumming at his temples.

 

“Why Lee Taeyong Isn’t Single: A Summary,” Mark reads aloud. His stomach does a stupid flip. The picture attached is grainy, like it had been taken from far away and zoomed in up close. In the far left corner is something that makes him do a double take; muted neon red lights, the same ones that decorate the face of Artie’s. There are two people in the picture, both similar heights, walking shoulder to shoulder outside the diner, their backs turned to the camera. The one on the left has his arm around the right’s waist.

 

That could be anyone. Mark also knows for a fact it’s him and Taeyong.

 

“Scroll down,” Jaemin says. Mark does as he’s told, only to find a video of slightly better quality than the picture. It’s shaky, probably having been filmed from across the street, but that doesn’t foster any doubt that it’s his house. He and Taeyong stand in the driveway, Taeyong leaning forward and trying to press an overdramatic goodbye kiss to Mark’s cheek as he squirms. Little graces, Mark’s back is turned to the camera again.

 

He touches a hand to the ghost of the kiss on his cheek and tries to keep himself from freaking out. Maybe this whole thing is lowbrow. Seven hundred, eight hundred likes at most. He checks the notes. 81.3k retweets. _Fuck me._

 

Jaemin leans over and searches through the comments. Mark can’t read them all, but the general gist seems to be keyboard smashes and dozens of iterations of _‘who’s that with him?’_ Jaemin picks out a few, reading them off like he memorized them, because he probably did. “ _We love a bi king in this house.”_ Okay, not bad. “ _Y’all uglies better leave him and his boyfriend the fuck alone.”_ Nice, but worse. Way worse. _“Perhaps he snapped!!”_ Mark doesn’t even know what that’s supposed to _mean_.

 

“The top comment’s threatening to drop her fansite.” Jeno yawns, laying his head down on the table. “I’m not complaining, considering it _is_ kind of hilarious, but how do you even get yourself into these situations?”

 

It’s a great question. How the stress of being alive hasn’t killed him yet is a mystery only the infinite cosmos and his Keurig knows.

 

“You guys don’t actually believe that, right? That we’re a thing. ‘Cause that’s like?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Kinda really unrealistic? Nice, that you have so much faith in me, but it’s not happening. Ever.”

 

It had taken months of incessant prodding for Mark to open up to them about the intricate politics of his love life (read: emotional insecurities). He’d been expecting _some_ sort of reaction, considering all five of them had come down to the house one weekend and had had a collective mental breakdown over the fact that he’d been living under the roof of the nation’s heartthrob for more than a decade. But because he’s friends with the most anticlimactic people on Earth, all he’d gotten was a five iterations of “yeah, that’s a mood” followed by him getting blue shelled and coming last in Mario Kart.

 

“I mean-” Chenle starts before Jisung nudges his shoulder. He crosses his arms. “What? I’m _just saying_ that the way you guys interact doesn’t leave all that much to the imagination.”

 

Renjun hums. “Rather than really parental, it kinda felt like you guys were friends? Or like Taeyong’s a way cooler older brother? Which is cute, I guess.” He spares Mark a sympathetic smile. “I wouldn’t sweat it. You _were_ taken in by the most thirsted after man in the country, though, so be a little easier on yourself? Enjoy the ride, maybe?”

 

Jaemin reaches over to rub his back. “What I think Injoon means to say is that Taeyong’s _really_ good looking, and it’s not your fault that you’re in love with your hot vampire dad.”

 

He can feel his nose scrunch up on instinct. “Oh, gross. Can we stop calling him my dad?” That’s a whole nother bucket of worms he’s not willing to touch. “Besides, he looks like he just got out of grad school.”

 

“Right. Legal guardian, sorry.”

 

He’d been adopted by Taeyong when he was nine. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t remember much from their first encounter. Glimpses, sure. The sweltering light trained on him. A dozen hungry eyes watching him. A number, always higher than the last, shouted out from the crowd. He didn’t know at the time that they were vampires. All he knew was that Mom wasn’t moving from where she was splayed on the cement floor, and he couldn’t speak enough Korean to tell the man gripping his arm that he wanted to go home.

 

If Taeyong hadn’t been attending a conference in the area and smelt the rotting blood, the police wouldn’t have known to come. He wouldn’t have met a man with kind eyes who didn’t seem to mind an orphaned child clinging onto his side and using his shirt as a tissue. And he wouldn’t have been adopted that month.

 

Needless to say, his life sans Taeyong would have been much, much different.

 

He covers his face with a hand. “It’s just...weird, right? I’m making it weird.” It’s not like anyone knows on twitter knows who he is anyway, and it’s not like Taeyong knows how to work a phone. He has nothing to worry about. “We do this stuff all the time. It’s not weird. I’m just being embarrassing.”

 

Jisung snorts. “Not as embarrassing as your SoundCloud account.”

 

“Not helping,” Mark groans. He considers his hoodie and briefly entertains the idea of smothering himself with it. That might even ease the ever pressing migraine he feels coming on.

 

“Call me crazy, but have you considered that Taeyong might like you too? Unconsciously?” Renjun folds his fingers under his chin. He blinks lazily at Mark, looking like the cat from next door. “Maybe there’s some residual parental guilt? I know we made a pact not to mention Artie’s, but I doubt he’d do that if he only thought of you in a completely platonic guardian-ward way. _That_ would be weird, otherwise.”

 

“I still can’t decide if that’s the worst or best thing that’s ever happened to you,” Jeno says, having given up on studying and opting to lean heavily into Renjun.

 

God, if Mark doesn’t know either.

  
  
  


 

 

By the time he gets back to his apartment, the dull ache that’s been pulsing behind his eyes the whole day is up full throttle. When getting virtually no sleep has become the standard since starting college, he’s had his fair share of migraines. This one is a completely different ball game. With how much the inside of his head is buzzing, he’s surprised he has enough coordination left to stick the key in the lock.

 

He breathes in. One step, two steps. Kick the door close. One step, two steps. Into the hallway. One step, and oh. He’s tilting. He’s tilting and the world is vertical and suddenly the floor is rising up to meet his face.

 

He thanks years of playing sports for being able to react quickly, throwing his hands out in front of him and trying to ignore the the shock that travels up his arms when his palms hit the ground.

 

One breath, two breaths. Repeat.

 

He thinks minutes must have passed, the only sound in his apartment the shallow gulps of air he’s forcing himself to take in.

 

When his wrists begin to groan under his weight he forces himself to stand up, and he grits his teeth against the urge to bite down on something. The pain in his gums is back, sinking into his jaw and stretching down to where the inside of his throat is starting to burn like a desert at high noon, and he thinks it can’t get worse until it _does_.

 

Just as he stumbles to lean against the wall, a wave of frigid, burning cold washes over him. It burrows under his skin, too hot and too cold and too everything and he thinks if the ringing in his ears keeps up, he might lose his mind like this.

  
  
  


 

 

He’s reading scans at the lab when he gets the call.

 

“Mark?”

 

Over the line, Mark’s breathing stutters. Taeyong frowns. “Mark, love? What’s wrong?”

 

It takes three tries for Mark to find his words, like his thoughts are scrambling on a frying pan and every second he can’t get them out is a second lost in coherency. When he does, he sounds like he’s about to _break_.

 

“I don’t know,” Mark breathes. “I don’t know what’s happening. My head hurts, and - and I’m thirsty but water isn’t helping.” There’s a sharp intake of breath and a pained hiss. “Please. Come.”

 

A technician startles he abruptly stands, motioning for the rest of them to continue with their work. He takes the stairs down to the parking garage, throwing his lab coat in the backseat and starting up the car, barely trusting himself to keep a level head even when anxiety spikes in his chest. He puts the phone on speaker.

 

“Mark,” he says slowly, clearly, “you need to go to the ER. I’m driving up there now, but it’ll be a while. Are any of your friends able to get you there?”

 

The refusal is instantaneous. “No! No. No, I can’t ask for -- there can’t be any people. I don’t want them coming here.” Mark chokes down a whine. He draws in a slow breath. “I don’t trust myself.”

 

He’s probably going forty miles over what’s humanly safe. “Trust yourself? Love, would you really be willing to risk-”

 

“My teeth -- they don’t feel right. And I know I want something, but I don’t know what it is, and I just…” Mark cuts himself off. “Something’s not right. Something’s not right with me.”

 

The drive to Mark’s apartment takes an hour and half on a good day. He’s pulls up in front of it in fifty minutes.

  


**Author's Note:**

> 'human mark' pffft 
> 
>  


End file.
